Power restored to Borrego area residents

Hundreds of people in the Borrego Springs area had their power restored late afternoon Saturday following an outage caused by severe weather.

At 1:30 p.m., 750 residents were without electricity in Borrego Springs, Shelter Valley and Canebrake. Power was restored by 4:20 p.m.

The area suffered a massive power outage shortly before 1 p.m. on Friday due to severe weather that caused a problem in the electrical system, according to the San Diego Gas & Electric website. Some 2,800 customers were affected initially.

Residents were left without air-conditioning during 100-degree temperatures.

In the meantime, the Borrego Springs Library offered citizens a place to stay cool.

Diana Kumler, a library technician, said people began coming in as soon as it opened its doors at 9 a.m.

"We've received a lot of phone calls about whether or not we're open, asking if they can come down," Kumer said. "We love doing things like this for the community. That's why we're doing it, to help people."

Kumler said the combination of near 100-degree weather and no air conditioning brought about 50 people into the library by 12:30 p.m.

Branch Manager Eric Robinson said citizens would be able to take advantage of the designated "cool zone" until 8 p.m., three hours after it would normally close on Saturday.